Demoulas Super Markets Inc. board members will meet Thursday in Boston, a month after considering removing the company's CEO, who is so popular with his Market Basket employees that at least hundreds showed up to support him throughout a more than 12-hour meeting.

It isn't entirely clear yet whether the board might vote on ousting Arthur T. Demoulas. The agenda for the July meeting included a "motion for removal of the president," which is not listed on Thursday's agenda. But it does include "engagement of Spencer Stuart," a Boston executive search firm.

Other matters include potential changes to the company's employee profit-sharing system, which according to the company has more than $550 million. There is also consideration of a one-time payment of "excess cash" to shareholders, another point of contention among the two battling sides of the founding Demoulas family.

None of the board's seven directors responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.

A board meeting last month at the Wyndham Hotel in Andover drew several hundred supporters of President and CEO Arthur T. Demoulas. But it doesn't look as if the Boston meeting will have the same turnout. A Facebook page "Save Market Basket" was buzzing with plans before the July meeting but as of Tuesday had no mention of Thursday's board meeting.

The meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. at the Harvard Club at 374 Commonwealth Ave.

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The board also met in Boston in early August, a meeting that was not publicized or attended by any of the hoards that lined an Andover street to support Demoulas in July.

While Demoulas was kept in office after the highly anticipated July meeting, it was not because of a vote in his favor. After meeting for more than 12 hours, the seven-member board took no action on a motion to remove the president.

In the week before that meeting, word of the potential removal of the company head created a stir among thousands of Market Basket employees and customers. But three of the company's nine family shareholders sued in June, alleging Demoulas made improper business deals with companies run by his wife and brothers-in-law and withheld information from board members.

The faction of the Demoulas family looking to oust Arthur T. Demoulas is led by the CEO's cousin, Arthur S. Demoulas. Each side of the family controls two board seats, with the remaining three independent. Arthur S. is a board member, but Arthur T. is not.

Board members are well aware of the public outcry in support for Arthur T., according to a memo among directors obtained by The Sun.

Two directors aligned with Arthur T., Terry Carleton and Bill Shea, wrote to other directors who were said to imply employees and others were misguided in their support.

"It has frankly been stunning to us," Carleton and Shea said in the letter, "that not once has anyone stopped to ask, 'What if these really are the feelings of our people?'"

"We think it is absolutely reckless to just assume it is all inauthentic, orchestrated, bought and paid for and then all our votes content with that assumption," they added.

"It appears clear that the majority of the board has no interest in these people's opinions and concerns other than to try and hang them on Arthur T. as one of the reasons that is going to be used to justify firing him."

The shareholders who sued in June cited business decisions and comments Arthur T. Demoulas made at board meetings from the time he took office in 2008 until recent months.

"My management style," Demoulas was quoted from a meeting transcript from 2009, "is not to come back to this board to request and ask for permission. I'm going to do it."

The company came to the defense of Demoulas, saying the quotes were taken out of context and that he is "clearly respectful" of the board "99.9 percent of the time."

Even if Demoulas is kept as CEO, other potential votes on Thursday's agenda could change the company's longstanding profit-sharing program, in place since 1963, or allow for one-time payment of "excess cash" to shareholders, all of whom are members of the Demoulas family.

The employee profit-sharing program has provided 15 percent to 20 percent of an employee's pay annually, with funds kept in an account and paid to the employee upon retirement. Thursday's agenda includes discussion of changing profit-sharing trustees, investment committee and administration.

Payments to shareholders have been an issue before, with Arthur T. Demoulas previously calling his potential ouster a money grab, allowing shareholders to get wealthier.

In an interview before the July board meeting, the company highlighted proposals by director Nabil El-Hage in 2011 and former board member Kenneth Tuchman in 2010 to borrow $1.5 billion or more to pay out to shareholders. Shareholders have received at least hundreds of millions of dollars in dividends in the last decade alone, according to the company.

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